


Love Story

by Otherworlder



Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: F/M, Modern Era, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-14
Updated: 2019-07-14
Packaged: 2020-06-28 08:43:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19808764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Otherworlder/pseuds/Otherworlder
Summary: Nimloth and Aegnor follow their long-sundered kinswoman back to a much changed Earth, in search of their loved ones.Mortality is a strange thing for the Firstborn. Sulien embraces it, Mithrellas has made her peace with it, Nimloth never did and still does not think about it, and Aegnor, who once so cowardly rejected it, struggles to be part of it, whether worthy or no.





	Love Story

It was the wee hours of the morning, and the sky was still grey lit by twilight. Aegnor walked into the kitchen and turned on the tap. He filled a glass with water, but did not turn the tap off, only stared at the flowing crystal water. A few seconds later the water steamed, for it had turned hot, and Aegnor stared the mechanism, engrossed, yet his mind also wandered far. How inconspicuous it seemed, hot water flowing from a faucet, so natural and plentiful like rain, yet to be commanded by men, coming and going as they willed, requiring no hot springs, no visible flame, not even a river within a day’s march. Tirion had fountains, faucets, bathhouses everywhere too, and water flowed with the ingenuity of Noldor engineering, but not endlessly, and certainly not without restrictions.

Water had been running for two or three minutes, until finally a man walked up beside him and gently twisted the faucet to stop the flow. Aegnor turned to find a now familiar face: Immanuel Adara, husband of Mithrellas and his very patient host for the past twelve days.

Last time it was Mithrellas who caught him staring at a running tap and testily turned it off. She protested, “If you want to simply stare at running water, at least draw up a bath!”

Now Immanuel smiled at him broadly and said, “I know I said last time that we can certainly afford it for you to stare at running tap water, but I would think you have seen enough of it by now? I would like to be environmentally conscientious these days.”

Immanuel was a man well into his sixties; this day and age, it was considered an old but still hale age. His hair was white as snow, and his face showed many deep lines, but he still had energy in his steps and a set of perfect teeth. He looked handsome with wisdom shinning in his blue eyes, at least that was Aegnor’s assessment, but Immanuel himself always claimed to look older and more beaten than his age due to his “outdoorsy” employment as a nature and wildlife photographer.

“I know this is all very strange to you, but at this rate when will we get to motor vehicles and a real venture into the city?” Immanuel spoke gently but very frankly, and only half jesting, “I know you are used to having a lot of time, but I can be gone before you realize it. You might be a little stuck then. Mithrellas, god bless her, is the worst recluse and hardly a good guide to the modern world, and Sulien did miss forty years.”

“I apologize,” Aegnor murmured, drank his water, and then added hesitantly, “I am grateful for your assistance, and I shall try to be a better student. I am indeed too often distracted, for I can scarcely believe myself here, in Ennor after all those years. Indeed I can scarcely believe myself corporeal once more.”

Immanuel’s eyebrows rose very high, “You...what? So you… you died like Sulien?”

To which Aegnor replied distractedly, “I died long, long ago, long even as my people measures it. All those years, I had no desire to become reembodied, for I thought I would never see Andreth again. What joy is there without her in the world? At least in the Hall of Mandos I could linger by the door and be a little closer to the unknown that had swallowed her.”

Immanuel fell silent from the sheer weight of Aegnor’s words, and it was a good five minutes before he drew a staggering breath.

“I knew it is hard for your kind, but I guess it really is impossible for us humans to truly feel how hard it is,” He sighed, “You know, I remember a little of the first time I married Mithrellas. Or at least I dream about meeting her and marrying her then, and Mithrellas confirms that was indeed how it all went down, but reincarnations are so last decade, so who knows really? I dream about my uncertainty and trepidation even back then, and I always ask myself, then and now, is this really fair to her? And wouldn’t it be better, certainly for her, to just have the schoolyard crush and move on?”

“No! Never!”

Aegnor’s ferocious outburst made Immanuel jump, and it startled Aegnor himself. It was his turn to breathe deep, before explaining in a low voice, “I did not marry Andreth, and it was not better, I could not move on.”

Immanuel forced himself to laugh and he said, “Damned if you do, damned if you don’t, huh. In that case, you as well do! I am happy for you that you decided to be corporeal again. Not that I can know what it’s like otherwise, but I imagine having a body is infinitely more practical, and fun.”

“Fun,” Aegnor murmured. He still struggled with the language sometime, and he feared that many simple words, such as this one, eluded him.

But Immanuel forged on, determined to make conversation and distract him, “So you and the young lady Nimloth are both related to our Sulien? I think she said something to that effect, but I never did get how exactly you are all related last time; ‘uncle’ and ‘cousin’ don’t explain all that much.”

So Aegnor answered, “Sulien’s paternal grandfather and Nimloth’s father are brothers, and Sulien’s grandmother is my sister. Though I am not only Nimloth’s kin by marriage; her father’s grandfather and my own maternal grandfather are also brothers.”

“Huh,” Immanuel took a while to sort through the genealogy in his head, before asking with interest, “So your sister married her second cousin?”

“Yes,” Aegnor paused briefly, before asking, “Is that frowned upon here? I will not mention it in the future to others then.”

“Well, in this part of the world it’s a lot more taboo than in other parts,” Immanuel seemed a little embarrassed, “But you don’t need to shy away from it if the topic comes up in conversation; second cousin marriages are bit quaint, but still considered alright, and in any case why should you care all that much about what others think? People give Mithrellas and me strange or dirty looks when we go out together too. You will have to get used to people’s curiosity and opinions and even malice soon enough, when you venture out.”

“When I venture out,” Aegnor murmured once more.

Venturing out to find his Andreth, one of the seven billions populating this world. That was the number Immanuel gave him, though he was at a loss as to what it really means. Never mind people, even when the Eldar were counting fishes and bees, the numbering stopped at millions.

“I thought you would be eager to be out here,” Immanuel gestured the window, “You are here to find your Andreth, no? It’s not going to be easy. I never understood how Mithrellas and Sulien do it.”

Aegnor hesitated moment, before asking, “If it does not burden you too much, will you tell me how they found you? How did you come together?”

Immanuel shrugged, “I am afraid the story from my point of view is quite unimpressive. Sulien’s husband was my brother. She told you this, right? They met in university.” Seeing Aegnor’s look of incomprehension he added, “It is a school of higher learning. Sulien said she got into the habit of seeking out education and attending school periodically, as her fancies strike her, so she is reasonably educated. Also, apparently her husband has always been a learned man, so a university is as likely a bet as any. They met and fell in love in a very normal, human way, you know? At least it looked to me that way. I was quite a bit younger than my brother, only fifteen at the time, and all I remember is how my brother talked endlessly about his girlfriend being the most amazing woman under the sun. He was deliriously in love. But it didn’t seem like anything abnormal, definitely not like reincarnations and destined union and all that. It still doesn’t.”

“And then two years later I met Mithrellas through Sulien. It was love at first sight, and the first few nights after meeting her I could barely sleep. I dreamed about things, but I just chalked them up to thinking about her all the time. I sort of pined after her without saying anything, because I was just a stupid teenager at the time, you know? I thought of course this unbelievably beautiful older lady couldn’t possibly like a dumb kid like me. But it turned out she did like me. We had a wonderful relationship, a wonderful marriage, and everything was just so normal. Mithrellas didn’t want children, but that’s not all that strange either.”

Immanuel fell silent for a long time, thinking, and at last he said with a small frown, “In fact, when she told me she is an elf I simply didn’t believe her. Mithrellas gave me the whole story when I proposed; she said she wasn’t quite human and she would never age and die, and marrying her was a for-life-and-eternity kind of deal, a deal I don’t have to take this particular lifetime. And she said that when I get too old she might just leave, because she still doesn’t deal well with mortality and death. I spent a few days wondering whether she was not quite right in the head, and then I decided it didn’t matter, and I married her thinking she had some psychological disorder. God, it sounds terrible, doesn’t it? She never did age, but still I could not believe it wholeheartedly; I just thought, she has always been this unbelievably beautiful woman, maybe she just has good genes and doesn’t show her age. Granted, it was getting a little ridiculous in my sixties, but still I only really believed when Sulien returned from death with you two in tow.”

Aegnor remembered the day they first landed on these mortal shores. They moored their Telerin-made ship in a small cove next to two mortal vessels. These mannish ships were also white and sleek, but they were made of metal, glass, and things that smelled faintly of oil and tar, with neither sail nor oar in sight. Aegnor had stared at those vessels then, the strangeness of Ennor so many ages removed finally condensing into a tangible form before him.

Sulien spared him and the vessels a brief glance and she said, “You can have a tour and a shipbuilding lesson some time later, but it is certainly a story for another day. Come; if fortune be kind Mithrellas and her husband should still live here and ready to welcome us.”

She raced up a set of stairs leading from the dock and beckoned for them to follow. Her steps were light and eager, and her eyes shining with a new light; she seemed like a child who had gone on an overlong journey now flying towards home. Two figures emerged from the house at the top of the hill. The one in front was undoubtedly one of Denethor’s people, small, pale, like a blackbird flitting through green leaves. She raced towards Sulien, and they embraced.

Immanuel followed into view, old and grizzled and trembling like a leaf. Sulien went up to him and took his hands. She said with glittering eyes, “I am here now, brother. I am so glad you are yet living, and I am sorry I did not return any sooner. If it were my decision alone I would have returned the very next day.”

Immanuel dropped to his knees and hugged her with all his might, howling like a child. Soon both Sulien and Mithrellas were both weeping, and Mithrellas said through her tears, “How could you be so careless, getting yourself killed? We managed to wade through so many years of woe for a few stolen lifetimes, and you risked everything for one moment? Never again, princess, never walk into war with your husband again! They would never let you return a second time.”

“I know, I know, and I am sorry! I promise you, never again.”

When the tearful reunion was finally over, Sulien stepped back to introduce Aegnor and Nimloth watching silently from a distance away. But an introduction was not wholly necessary, for Mithrellas gasped upon seeing Nimloth.

“Lady Nimloth, my queen!” Mithrellas curtsied, face full of tears once more, “How… How can this be?”

Nimloth peered at her for a few moment before recognition dawned, “I think I remember you. Your family came with Princess Merilien to settle in Doriath when she married cousin Amdir, was that not so? You were so young then, and cousin Amdir doted on you, for there were so few children in those days.”

Mithrellas has grown quite pale, and she asked in a small voice, “How come you here, my lady? Surely our people are reembodied and happily settled in Aman now? Unless, but it is impossible…”

Nimloth laughed mirthlessly and replied, “You guessed correctly. Dior Eluchil was judged to be a Secondborn by the Valar, for had our Lady Luthien not agreed to mortality before she was returned to the land of the living with her lover? Dior and I stepped into the Hall of Mandos together, only for him to pass down a path that I could not follow. Here I am now, yet already I missed twenty thousand years that I could have had with him.”

“They never knew that the souls of the edain return to Ennor, living many lifetimes, ” Sulien explained quietly, “But knowing this, how could one linger still in the Hall or in Aman? We went before Mandos together, suing for pardon and a chance to return here. So Lady Nimloth is here with me, and also Lord Aegnor, my grandmother Lady Galadriel’s brother.”

“And here we are,” Aegnor echoed.


End file.
